


this is everything you never knew

by seeyaloki



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (Movies), Thor - All Media Types
Genre: Light Angst, M/M, Post-Avengers (2012)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-14
Updated: 2018-01-14
Packaged: 2019-03-04 15:12:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13367352
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seeyaloki/pseuds/seeyaloki
Summary: His whole life it has felt like Thor was right next to him, but just not close enough. Just an inch still separating them, fingertips barely grazing. And it drives him mad, to want to feel so bad, the one thing he just cannot reach.





	this is everything you never knew

**Author's Note:**

> written at 4am so go easy on me

Loki wonders what he’s thinking.

 

Thor hasn’t looked at him, not once since they arrived on Asgard. He hasn’t looked at his shackled wrists or his muzzled mouth. He doesn’t even look at the tesseract, locked up in that glass cage and isn’t that ironic? This source of unparalleled power, the one thing he risked it all for, just as trapped as he is. Loki tries catching his eye. He has chosen to walk all the way down what remains of the bifrost, requested the guards to race back to the palace, warn Odin that they were coming, albeit slowly.

 

Loki wonders what it means, this walk, this silence. He thinks maybe this is Thor’s way of saying goodbye to him, before he gets thrown into the dark again by the man who calls himself his father. It makes Loki chuckle, muzzled as he is. Thor, loud-mouthed, not having any words when he needs to hear them most.

 

Loki wants Thor to yell at him. Not about coming home, not about his heritage, about his right place. He wants him to scream and unleash his anger. Loki wants Thor to show him how much it must have hurt to find his undead brother breaking himself and taking everyone down in the wreckage.

 

Thor doesn’t do any of that. He has learned, it seems, to replace his rage with silence. Loki wonders if he realizes, that Thor has changed just as much as he has.

 

He tries catching Thor’s eye but he looks away. It stings. He’s almost too proud to admit it. It hurts because he’s never witnessed it before. Even when he was in full armor, fighting him one of the tallest buildings in that godforsaken city, even when he unleashed war upon Thor and his precious humans. He still had that look of faith in his eyes, a look of hope that his brother would see reason, change his mind. That they would walk away side by side, capes blazing green and red as they turned their backs on it all.

 

He’s seen thatlook before, of course. It was right there too, when Loki was hanging off the ragged edge of the bifrost. Thor was so sure, so damned sure that he would not let go. That Loki would reach for his hand and Odin would lift them both up and it would all be over. Oh, Thor had hope, too much of it. When Loki fell, a part of him had hoped too, that Thor would follow him down. But it was never like Thor to give up when there were still things to do, when there were still battles to fight. He had lost Loki, he had cried for it, too. But he would not give up. Not even for this brother he thought he knew.

 

Loki thinks of what Odin will say, when he has to face him at the end of this walk. He thinks his death might be upon him. Loki hopes, if that is the case, that Odin will at least have the decency to do it himself. He owes him that, after all. So that Loki can look him in the eyes when Odin kills him a second time. That _Loki_ can give him that look of hope, just to trick him into caring, just to let it haunt him, if he _is_ meant to end that way.

 

But then Thor stops walking, and every thought in his head vanishes again.

 

He turns his body towards Loki but it takes a long time before he manages to lift his gaze. He eyes the muzzle, sighs and looks away again. Loki used to be so good at reading him, but now all he finds is a blank page waiting for words to paint them black and white.

 

He sighs again. Then he looks behind to check if anyone’s there and he lifts his hands to Loki’s face. He flinches away a little and he thinks _look what you have made of me_ when Thor holds his hands up in front of him to let him know he means no harm.

 

(What have they turned themselves into? Centuries of trust obliterated and the worst part is that lately Loki has been having trouble remembering _why_.)

 

Thor’s eyes are wide and his hands careful when he brings them to the back of Loki’s head. He can hear him muttering a curse, a soft clicking sound and then, _then_ , it’s like he can finally breathe again. Thor throws the muzzle to the ground. Loki watches it fall off the edge. There are still cracks in the bifrost he realizes, technically not his doing, but they remind him of his mistakes. Underestimating Thor was maybe his biggest one and he should have known, even back then, that Thor was never truly trying to win from Loki. He was just trying to make him realize he was always destined to lose.

 

“Say something.”

 

His eyes snap back to Thor. He looks at Loki for the first time since they got back. It’s too confronting, too much all at once. There is something else in his look now, not hope, no. Acceptance, maybe. That this is what Loki is now, a traitor, a murderer. He wants to ask him if he still looks at him and thinks _brother_.

 

“What do you want me to say, Thor? That I’m sorry? I’m not.”

 

Thor groans and it makes him reminisce. That groan, always that one when Loki talked in riddles around him. He never loved Loki’s tricks, not when he was using them on him, but he loved Loki’s words. And he loved them most when they were spoken plainly, honestly. So Loki is done lying. For the moment, at least. After all, he knows a lost battle when he sees one. And he’s too tired, too weary now to fight for something he cannot win.

 

“I’m not asking for an apology. I’m asking for your thoughts, Loki. I-.. Are you scared?”

 

Loki laughs at that. He can’t help it. Nothing ever quite scares him anymore. Not since those few minutes in the vault, seeming so long ago now, skin turning blue and knowing for the first time that he was as tainted as he had always felt.

 

“I’ve been close enough to death that Odin’s sentence doesn’t scare me anymore, Thor. Whatever it may be. Why? What kind of punishment does he plan to give me?"

 

“I don’t know,” He looks away again, eyes the cracks on the bifrost just like Loki had. “I do not want to know.”

 

“Denial won’t get you anywhere. Whatever is meant to happen, will happen. Regardless of which truths you choose to face.”

 

Thor huffs.

 

“And you know all about truth, don’t you, brother?”

 

The word still sounds wrong. He wants to correct him, yell at him that they do not share anything other than the walls they grew up inside of, show him his blue skin and those terrifying red eyes and say _this is everything you never knew_ but he’s too selfish. If he is to die, he doesn’t want Thor’s last vision of him to be the most ugly one.

 

“No one knows the truth better than a liar.”

 

Something changes in Thor’s eyes then. He looks at Loki like he’s discovered something new there, something he didn’t realize yet. Something like surrender. And that’s the thing about them, centuries of living together, sharing the same space and they still don’t know each other as well as they could.

 

“So give me the truth then. Did you ever love me, Loki? Did you?”

 

He sounds frantic. And that’s the whole reason why he did this, Loki realizes. This long walk, just the two of them. Because no matter what happens next, Loki will never be more vulnerable than he is now, shackled at the wrists, nowhere to go, nothing but an exposed nerve ready for Thor to figure out how it all works, that twisted mind of his. The hopeful look is back. It almost feels like betrayal. Mere moments ago he had wished for Thor’s anger because anger is something he knows, something he knows how to handle. But the universe has never been on his side, and the truth leaves his mouth before he could even try to stop it.

 

“Yes, I did. I do. It was never about you, Thor. Not really. Yes, I was jealous and angry and I felt lost in ways  _you_ never had. But no matter what I do, it will never change how I feel about you."

 

Thor stands so far away from Loki as he says it. And isn’t that how it has always been? His whole life it has felt like Thor was right next to him, but just not close enough. Just an inch still separating them, fingertips barely grazing. And it drives him mad, to want to feel so bad, the one thing he just cannot reach.

 

“I love you, Thor,” And perhaps Loki has never faced this truth, either. “I only ever hated the fact that I do.”

 

He doesn’t know what it is in Thor that breaks in that moment, but it takes less than a second to cross the distance between them and then he’s right there with him. Forehead pressed tightly against Loki’s. And that tiny bit of difference in their height has never felt more pronounced than it does now.

 

“I love you as well, Loki. I do. Oh how I wish you would have let yourself realize that.”

 

Thor’s hands go to Loki’s face again and he doesn’t flinch this time. It feels good, to have those fingertips playing at his hair, a thumb pushed against his earlobe. Thor kisses him. Just that, just lips against his, a beard scratching at his chin. It only lasts two seconds but Loki wonders how he could have missed this, when he never realized he could have had it in the first place.

 

(It tastes like goodbye, like _I wanted you to know, just in case_ and how it hurts, to lose everything just a moment after he got it in reach.)

 

“I will talk to father. I will not let you die, Loki. Whatever it takes.”

 

Loki nods, he’s too tired to argue. Too tired to tell him that he can say whatever he wants, he can beg for Loki’s life but Odin is nothing if not determined. And he’s thought of it before, he lets this new truth, too enter his mind. That maybe he has some things in common with the Allfather, after all. A killer, a liar, grabbing what’s not really his to take. Holding on with both hands to the kind of love he doesn’t deserve.

 

“Come on, Thor. We have a long way to walk yet.”

 

And so they start again. Asgard is beautiful, the colors of the bifrost vibrant beneath his feet, Thor a steady presence right beside him.

 

The truth of the matter, the real truth, the one Loki knows best, even though he never lets it leave his mind. The truth, is this:

 

He knows what it’s like, to feel the kind of pain that leaves you numb, leaves you breathless and screaming out in agony. He has felt it in himself. He has seen it in Thor’s eyes. He knows what it does to someone. He knows it can drive you mad, if you let it, until you become the kind of monster you were always made to believe you are. Until Loki became this.

 

(But he knows love, too. And he knows surrender. He knows his brother, by his side, still. After everything.)

 

And yes, he thinks. The truth, is that he’s not scared at all.


End file.
